Garbage traffickers busted outside Naples

(ANSA) – Rome, Dec. 6 – Police outside Naples uncovered 21,000 tons of unregistered garbage and arrested two people for alleged illegal trafficking and fraud, including the CEO of a front company. The bust took place in the town of Agropoli, where police said the garbage traffickers had made 240 million euros over the course of seven years by masquerading as legitimate trash-disposal firms and filing taxes for trash incinerators that did not exist. Police seized 14 million euros in assets.

Italian police recover stolen Egyptian sphinx

(AFP) – Rome, Dec. 6 – Italian police on Thursday said they had recovered a 2,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx statue that was stolen from a necropolis near Rome and was about to be smuggled out of the country.

“The investigation began with a random check of an industrial vehicle during which police found a decorative ceramic object from an excavation as well as many photos of the Egyptian sculpture,” the police said in a statement.

A search of the driver’s residence turned up the statue from the Ptolemaic era (4th-1st centuries BC) packed into a crate and hidden in a greenhouse.

The statue is believed to have been stolen from the Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum near Viterbo, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Rome.

The police “prevented the sculpture, as well as a series of ancient objects from being put on the clandestine international market,” the statement said.

The granite statue measures 120 centimeters and 60 centimeters.

Egyptian sculptures began to be shipped to Italy following the Roman conquest of Egypt in the 1st century BC.

(Reuters) – Florence, Nov. 13 – Two men and a woman were killed when their car fell off a collapsed bridge in Tuscany on Tuesday, as floods battered central Italy for a third straight day.
In all four people have died in flooding that forced part of the country’s main north-south highway to close and has damaged many homes and shops as well as thousands of acres of farmland.
Tuscany was particularly badly affected, with 800 people evacuated from their homes in the village of Albinia, thousands left without electricity and several towns isolated by swamped roads. The main A-1 highway was closed in parts of the region.
Floods in the Tuscan district of Massa Carrara had caused 10 million euros ($13 million) of damage, according to Italian agricultural group Coldiretti, to farms, crops and olive groves.
The Tiber river burst its banks north of the capital of Rome as heavy rain moved south, flooding factories and homes near the ancient town of Orte.
“Even if you listen to the oldest inhabitants this has never happened before,” said Orte resident Luca Seccese. “It has completely destroyed us.”
The center of Rome was kept safe by high embankment walls and because there had been no heavy rain there for two days.
Water levels were receding in Venice, the lagoon city and UNESCO World Heritage Site that at the weekend saw its sixth-highest water levels since records began in 1872.
St Mark’s Square, one of the lowest lying areas of the city, where some tourists were able to swim in high water on Sunday, was returning to normal, a city official said.

ITALY NEEDS TO SHORE UP DEFENSE AGAINST NATURAL DISASTERS

(ANSA) – Rome, Nov. 13 – Investments are required in a “serious program” aimed at shoring up defenses in areas at risk of flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters, in order to prevent “this country from falling apart more than it already is,” the head of Italy’s national civil protection agency said Tuesday.

Such a program would also help prevent unnecessary injuries and deaths every time an extreme natural phenomenon strikes, Franco Gabrielli said. Italians also have to start taking more responsibility in the way they attempt to counter damage caused by natural disasters, including respecting building codes and not constructing in geographically risky areas, Gabrielli said. Referring to extreme weather incidents, such as recent rains which dumped up to 40 centimeters of water in some areas of Tuscany in just over 48 hours, Gabrielli said that these rains “impacted an area whose fragility is very well-known and where people built where they shouldn’t have built”. “The real challenge,” Gabrielli said, is to carry out significant – although not necessarily massive – investments in shoring up risky areas. Separately, Gabrielli also made a call for more private coverage of weather-related damages, saying that State can’t be expected to foot the bill for all types of natural disaster-induced damage and that people need to get their own private insurance coverage.

The only solution against damage caused by flooding, earthquakes and natural catastrophes is for citizens to be forced to purchase insurance, Gabrielli said. “It’s time to wake up to the fact that the State, considering its resources, is no longer able to offer, in an equal manner, adequate answers from a rebuilding point of view”.

Gabrielli also criticized his countrymen’s “not in my backyard” mindset when it comes to issues like garbage disposal, pointing out how Italians don’t recycle.

Italy sends garbage across borders, where it is burned and generates electricity which is subsequently sold. By doing this, Gabrielli said, Italy is missing an opportunity and shipping wealth out of the country.

“A woman ate a “baba,” a typical Neapolitan sponge cake soaked in rum syrup, at a baptism party in Caserta. When the party was over, she rode a bicycle home. In a town where people often drive fast, city cops chose instead to stop the woman who was riding the bicycle. She was tested for blood alcohol content and tested positive, resulting in a reading of .09 percent, a little bit higher than Italy’s maximum legal limit of .05 percent. In accordance with new rules of the road, her driving license was suspended.”